The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Coming up with the right SEO answer is just one part of improving your website's performance online. The strategy you devise then needs implementation and, more often than not, project management. The purpose of this post is to share what I (and a few others) have learned about managing SEO strategies over the years. There isn't much hardcore SEO though- I suggest you take a look at this if you want some of that!

Goals/Objectives

If you're developing an SEO strategy for a website, you need to make sure you have some objectives in place. A simple, 'increase traffic' or 'rank better' is not specific enough but, having said that, creating goals that are so specific they exclude any recognition of improvement across the board are similarly limiting.

Applied to SEO
You're an in-house SEO for a website that sells cheese online. Your overall goal is to increase conversions on your site. Your strategy goals are threefold:

reduce bounce rate by about x%

increase the number of new visitors by about x%

increase conversation rate by about x%

It's a painfully obvious thing to say, but having aims in place like this will really increase your chances of creating a successful strategy; everything that goes into it has to have a motivation. Recommending a Twitter account? Is that because you think it'll increase the number of new visitors by x% or because you quite like Twittering? By giving every task you outline a definite purpose, you'll reduce the risk of wasting time on tactics that don't work.

Getting everyone on board

These goals and objectives need to be developed in partnership with whoever you're creating the strategy for, whether that's a client or your boss. It really helps if you can demonstrate to this person why you've chosen these goals and, once you've come up with the strategy, how you're going to achieve them. One of the main reasons for this is that you'll probably need their help at some point along the way.

Applied to SEOSEO isn't rocket science but if your client's/boss's expertise lies elsewhere then it's really worth making sure they understand what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it. Make sure someone (and it can be you) really believes in the strategy and can champion it to whoever needs convincing. It's important that this person can communicate the overall idea as well as go into the specifics. We've found powerpoint, graphs and the odd screenshot of a 'moz tool helps with this. (My post about using 'moz tools in the sales process talks a bit about this).

In terms of implementation, if you can show (preferably with diagrams) how changing that title tag or contacting that partner site is crucial to the strategy then you've won half the battle.

Develop Indicators

If you're putting together a strategy that's going to last for more than a week or two, you want to be able to check up on it along the way. One of the characteristics of a 'holistic strategy' could well be that it won't start showing results until you're quite a way in (eg. if you start by making a load of techy changes to the website that will only affect rankings once you start linkbuilding), so you need to come up with a way to show the plan is working before it actually is! Sound challenging? It is, but it's definitely worth it.

Applied to SEO
"Leading indicators and signature analytics" are the buzz words of the moment. The idea is to think of the stuff you can spot that indicates something is working. For example, if your overall objective is to improve the performance of a certain few search terms and you decide that one of the ways to do that is to increase domain diversity, then your leading indicator is simply to monitor the number of domains linking to you. If your aim is to improve the longtail traffic to your site, then your signature analytics could be to monitor the number of 3 or more word keyphrases that are driving traffic to your site.

Delegate tasks

Once your strategy, goals and indicators are set up, it's time to start delegating some tasks! Personally, I love this bit, but I know lots of people find it hard to handover tasks that are intrinsic to the success of a strategy. Unless you personally have infinite time and resources, the project will probably suffer if you try and do everything yourself.

Applied to SEO
A nice spreadsheet with a list of tasks, due dates and who's responsible for what will do wonders here. Whatever works though, just make sure everyone's up to date and ready to go.

Actions

No matter how convincing and attractive a strategy might look, it really won't work unless it's actionable and then actioned. As long as all your tasks are created, handed out and acted upon from day one you can't fail. If only it was that easy....

Applied to SEOIn reality, fitting your SEO strategy in alongside all the other challenges that the website you're working for faces can be really difficult. How can you decide between a bug fix or a new widget for your limited dev resource? This is where an ability to prioritize comes in very handy. There will be actions within your strategy that are more important and time-sensitive than others but spotting which they are is hard; you often have to make calls on the potential benefit of future actions. Your strategy must be grounded on solid SEO concepts that you can see working on other sites. If it is, then you should have no problem making a call on the potential benefit of one action over another.

Reviews

Regular catch ups with whoever the strategy is for are essential throughout the project. People forget things, the market changes, stuff doesn't work... this all needs to be discussed and accounted for. If your goals need to be tweaked half way through a strategy, for whatever reason, you need to be able to adapt quickly. It's also important to tweak the expected results and leading indicators accordingly. A regular review is also a really good time to check that all those tasks you delegated are being completed in the best possible way.

Applied to SEO
How you go about these reviews obviously varies hugely from case to case but put something in the diary and keep to it! I've found it's worth keeping this kind of catch up quite formal- sort out an agenda and try and stick to it. These catch ups are also an excellent opportunity to help keep you on track. Most folk would rather be building a Twitter network than digging through a list of niche directories to spot any missed opportunities. A good catch up that lets you check off what's been done and what still needs doing will remind you which actions will actually make your strategy work.

Things to bear in mind

Quick wins vs. diminishing returns - Implementing an SEO strategy often involves picking off the low-hanging fruit first. For example, if there are problems with the indexing of the site you're working for and your improvement of the navigation fixes these problems and suddenly allows new pages to rank, you're going to look pretty good in month one. However, this kind of quick win approach can't last forever; you should think about whether your client or boss will understand this. Two things will help with this:

Work the concept of diminishing returns into your strategy as a positive thing- ie. make sure your boss or client understands that, although the value you'll be adding month on month will be worth the investment, the value you add in the first few months might well blow them away.

A strategy is a cumulative project so make sure you always look at the progress the site has made from the day you started, not just from the previous catch up.

Know your resources - As I mentioned above. an SEO strategy with no actions is terrible- as bad as a kitten in a box with no videophone on standby to capture the magic. However, an actionable strategy with no-one to actually do the work is so much worse. (If anyone can work out how to bring in Schrodinger here I think that would be great. Something along the lines off 'if an actionable strategy has no-one to action it, is it a strategy at all?). Know thy minions and what they are capable of and remember, if the rules change half way through the game, then you should rethink what a 'win' will look like.
_________________________

Before I sign off, last week Will ran a popular conference call about how we use SEOmoz tools at Distilled. A recording of the call and the notes are now available online. If you would like to hear about future calls (and get future recordings) you can sign up on that page too. There was particular enthusiasm for one about advanced Excel (especially PivotTables) - watch out for that coming soon.

(My thanks to Tom and Will Critchlow and Stephen Tallamy for their advice about Project Management for SEO)
(Thanks to modenadude for the image).

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Comments
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Benchmark and document everything you can think of. I often find clients who are oblivious to what is actually contained on their site. Since link-building is largely done "behind the scenes", it is hard to explain what exactly is being paid for by a client. I store a complete copy of whatever site I am working on as well as cache screen-shot from Google with the date.

This process helps buy a little leeway with uneducated clients who have a hard time accepting that it can take a few months or more (an eternity to small business owners) to rank for competitive terms.

For anyone serious about bringing some rigour to their SEO projects I strongly recommend developing some formal understanding of project management best practice.

The Prince2 project management methodology is an excellent framework for 'managing successful projects'. Also, the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a fantastic resource.

Understanding project management is a bit like understanding SEO - some of it is common sense, but you don't realise what you don't know until you dive in and learn from the experts. I've personally reaped a lot of benefit from taking formal training in Prince2, and I can sincerely say that all of my engagements have been more successful since I acquired specialist project management skills.

For anyone interested, it will take about 40-80 hours of study to learn enough to pass the Prince2 Practitioner exam, will cost < $2k, and you can do everything online except for the exams. Of course, if you're motivated enough to propel yourself through the course without an exam deadline, and you don't care about the certification, then you just need to read the book.

Studying an online course is really what you make of it. It all depends on how committed you are to teaching yourself. The Prince2 online course that I did had all the information I needed to know, plus I had a big fat reference book that I read cover to cover.

In an ideal world it would be great to have unlimited time to be able to learn in an interpersonal setting from a Prince2 guru, but the reality is that time is sometimes scarce, and the quality of the tutor is often a gamble :)

Just to prove my point - I got a better mark in the exam than all of the people who had done the in-class course, so I guess that says something.

As a project manager I would recommend David Allen's book Getting Things Done.

One thing I think it's important to do from a project management point that isn't mentioned above is to understand where you are. While it's important to set goals for yourself/team/project you must really analyze where your client is at when they come to you. I have worked both as an in-house SEO and currently for a leading consulting company and before we set goals we look complete a ranking, conversion review that helps predict realistic SEO goals.

Great Post! Thanks for emptying the gooey knowledge from you well-endowed brain mussle. Does anyone have good resources to learn more about bounce rates? Favorite blog entries perhaps? I haven't been using this stat as a benchmark and I clearly should be.

Question: Does anyone have any recommendations for an SEO project management tool? I mean, our team uses Basecamp and it works well enough, but is there any dedicated service out there that can help manage SEO or SMM projects?

I'm looking at the suggestion above to create a speadsheet with goals, etc, and I'm a little overwhelmed and don't know where to start...the thought of creating something like that from scratch is a bit intimidating...

Just finished up day two of the seminar, and I am very impressed by seomoz and it's partners alike. Although many speakers covered a whole host of seo related topics, I walked away from the conference with a renewed interest in project management. Seth and Conrad preached the importance of using statistics and quantifiable data to hone your skills and improve the value of your services to your clients. Fundamental tips for success.

Hi, Being an SEO expert, I really appreciate your post and genuine content you have provided us. SEOmoz is an ideal blog to read to learn all the SEO relevant things. Here I just wanted to say thanks to you. Also, I wanted to ask, if there is any specific SEO software you recommend us for SEO reporting and SEO Management too..

We hit the jackpot in organizing our tasks and workflow once we started using a cheap little tool called BaseCamp from 37signals. Very affordable!We were amazed by the results of an organized campaign where multiple people are involved in accomplishing tasks and keeping track of what's been done and when its done! Specially laverging content development to link building!

Now if only SEOmoz would learn from its rival Ra**nTools and integrate basecamp into its system, life would be much easier ;)

Thanks for a great article. Beginning tomorrow, I'll be adding the part about dimishing returns into our presentations. I've struggled with how to prepare/answer that when it eventually comes up and you've give me the method to attack it at the start. Hopefully, this will not become an issue in the future.

I like the way you organized this article. Everything you mention can be applied to project management in general. Why "put everything in a spreadsheet," though? It makes more sense to use project management software that can track objectives, tasks, ownership, milestones, send alerts, etc.

Project management is one thing where SEOs can falter. Especially in big organizations where you have multiple points of contact, it becomes really difficult. What I came across in my experience is that most SEOs are torn between their research ( keyword, search behaviour and industry) and project management.

As a result, project management takes a backseat and folks try to find work arounds.

Thanks for sharing. I came upon this post as I am searching for a SEO project management tool to help me stay focus and productive with new projects in the pipeline. What are some of the SEO campaign tools that you would recommend to track my project progress? I see Basecamp being mentioned but there are folks who feel that Basecamp is good for web design projects but not SEO.

Fantastic post. The broken Scrum image sent me scrambling for one online. If you're looking to update the post, here are a couple of options: http://www.agileforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/scrum_process_big.jpgor http://pmtips.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Scrum.jpg

I agree that it is necessary to set the SEO process, which must be always based on client needs and requirements, which have to identify the project manager because client often don't know exactly what you can get and how SEO can fills their requirements.

As a project manager, I sincerely appreciate this post! This was pretty much a step-by-step for me, which I rarely see because so many mozzers are actually SEOs (and not a project manager that loves to dabble :)

Really nice reading. Im not a theorethical aperson and dont like to follow strategies or on paper made plans but this looked really easy and simple. OF course recognicing all the steps in the work of results, its a hell of a job and time consuming but really fun when the results are showing...

I willdefinately followw your tips for management as it looked so easy and simple

Great tips - thanks. I especially like the idea of including reporting on leading indicators...I usually just report on overall performance indicators but they can be a little too abstract for the SEO uneducated.

As far as tools go, I like to use Basecamp for the day to day tracking and collaboration, and an Excel KPI scorecard (tuned for SEO, but based on the concepts of WebAnalyticsDemystified). Anything that gets people off of back-and-forth project/status tracking emails is definitely worth the investment and basecamp has worked great for that.

Great post! This is a great checklist for anyone starting an SEO project or for anyone starting a new site. Our family site was launched back in February and we tried to apply a business model using tools such as a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).

As you mentioned, regular reviews are essential, everyone in the team needs to assess what is working, what can be done next etc.

I will definitely try to follow your guidelines for our next family web meeting (That sounds really sad - there will be chips and dip as well!)

The primary focus of the SEO Project Manager is organizing and managing resources (both internal and our client's) in such a way that these resources deliver all the work required to complete our SEO campaigns (projects) within defined scope, time, and cost constraints. In this role, communication skills and attention to detail is a must as the Project Manager acts as the intermediary between the clients, sales and technical staffs.Really a nice post .Thanks

It perfectly demonstrated the process that a successful SEO project should go through.

I totally agree with your "Things to bear in mind". The most difficult thing I've experienced was let client understand what I was trying to do, and they often reject some strategies simply because they don't like it no matter it's beneficial or not (e.g. link building)

One of the ways we've been dealing with clients who want to dismiss integral aspects of a good campaign (like link building or updating content) is to explain that while we certainly wouldn't do anything that's against their wishes (they are the client, after all), the effectiveness of the campaign will be very seriously hindered without those elements. Clients spending money on SEO are also presumably focused on ROI, so if you present it as "less link building = less money, more link building = more money", that might help them to see things your way.

Another good way to drive the point home is to show them a competitor's site who is doing very well on the web, and point to the link building (or content building, etc) strategies the competitor has implemented.

I think it's hard once a project plan is developed to add additional SEO services to that. What I typically do is in the initial proposal I suggest in a list of most important to least important all aspects that I feel can be improved about a website then discuss the importance of each one in depth with the client. Then based on the requests of the client we go from there but I continually remind them along the way that there are other factors that are not in the initial project that are important to SEO and the success of their website.

Once the initial project is completed and some success seen it is much easier to approach them and say hey now that we have increased traffic and conversions by X% why not try some of the important SEO tactics I mentioned earlier in my proposal that we could not fit into the budget.

That is really the most important service I do for my clients is to ensure that upfront they have my full attention and recommendation of what needs to be done then I do not look like a slime ball continually adding in new things to a proposal once the project is approved.

I struggle with the same things you do. Simply trying to communicate value is the easy part. But showing them the steps it takes to accomplish what's needed? That is something else altogether. I often get push back when it's time to actually do the work unless I can make a strong case.

It's my least favorite part of SEO. You get a big contract, but the client is unwilling to make significant changes to the site, or is unwilling to create content and participate socially... [sigh]